Wireless communication can be used as a means of accessing a communication network. Wireless communication has certain advantages over wired communications for accessing a network. For example, implementing a wireless interface can eliminate a need for a wired infrastructure thereby reducing the cost of building and maintaining network infrastructure. In addition, a wireless network can support added mobility by allowing a wireless device to access the network from various locations or addresses. A wireless interface can comprise at least one transceiver in active communication with another transceiver that is connected to the network.
Various types of channel access schemes can be used to communicate data over the wireless interface. For example, one type of channel access scheme uses frequency division. Frequency division can provide different frequency bands to different data streams. For example, on one frequency band, all time slots can be available for uplink transmissions and on another frequency band, all time slots can be available for downlink transmissions. In a time division channel access scheme, different time slots are available to different data streams over the same frequency band. Frequency division schemes can provide twice the bandwidth as time division schemes using the same power.
In a wireless network, resources required for uplink transmissions are generally different from resources required for downlink transmissions thus implementing a frequency division scheme can result in unused frequency resources which can undesirably impact transmission in the network. However, coverage and throughput to wireless devices in certain geographical locations within a cell, such as at the cell edge, can be undesirably reduced when time division schemes are implemented due to power limitations.
Overview
A system and method of allocating communication resources to a wireless device in a wireless communication network are provided. A first subframe configuration can be assigned to a first carrier of a frequency band of an access node. A second subframe configuration different from the first subframe configuration can be assigned to a second carrier of the frequency band. The access node can receive a resource request associated with an application running on the wireless device. An application requirement of the application running on the wireless device can be determined. The wireless device can be instructed to establish communication with the access node over one of the first carrier and the second carrier during a communication session based on the determined application requirement.